Jreg fanfic feat Lil' Nazbol and Post-Left
by fyghjksdfikl
Summary: no romance because lil nazbol is 12 what are you THINKING you disgust me trigger warning: graphic depictions of suicide attempt
1. How To Save A Life

"_Get outta here! You're not a real centrist!"_

"_Yeah, go away! You're like the opposite of who we want on our team!"_

"_I couldn't care less about someone like you."_

Their scathing words marked him as he ran, tearing off his ushanka and clutching it to his chest, sobbing. Was he not good enough? Was he just not meant to be?

"_You're an abomination. A freak. A wacky."_

He wasn't meant to be.

He turned down an alleyway, running just for the sake of running, running in the hopes that he could run away from the voices tearing him apart.

If only he could.

He stopped, arm against a wall of some graffitied building or other, panting. Tears streamed down his cheeks still, staining his hat.

He slammed it to the ground, foot raised. He was so stupid so so so stupid to think he could be a real ideology like the centrists or the extremists and he was about to grind that stupid hat into the dirt when a weak straining voice interrupted-

"Tankie? Is that you?"

He whipped around. What he'd mistaken for a trash bag or a pile of rags, covered in needles and drug paraphernalia in general, was a person. A very bedraggled person, messy hair poking out of their hoodie and something dark staining the sleeves. Their eyes were wide open, dilated to the point where he couldn't tell where the iris ended and pupil began.

"Or are you Nazi? Naaa~ziii, what are you doing with Commie's hat?" The figure giggled, then gasped in pain. "Nazi, it huurrtssss…"

"Who are you?" he demanded indignantly, picking up the hat and dusting it off self-consciously. Acting like he'd done nothing with it a second earlier. Did this person know Commie or Nazi? Two of the four fabled Extremists?

"No idea, no idea. Anarkiddy? Useless post-left?" They giggled again. "Won't matter for much longer!"

A dark substance was beginning to pool around the person's arms. He gasped, realizing it was blood, and threw up a little in his mouth. This person was seriously injured.

"C-commie, it hurts…"

He shook his head. _Snap out of it_. He'd not gone to Boy Scouts all those years for nothing.

He ripped the hoodie into strips, causing protests that quickly faded in strength. Either the person had realized he was trying to help, or there'd been too much blood loss.

He really, really hoped that it wasn't the latter.

Deep lacerations marked the person's arms, wounds from a razor that was lying, bloodstained, in the figure's left hand. Was this done on purpose? Was it- did this person mean to do it? _No, _he resolved. Nobody would _ever_ want to do this to themselves. No matter their lot in life, there was always a reason for someone to keep going.

He grabbed the strips that he'd cut up, binding them tightly around the person's arms. At first, tourniquets. Then, bandages. He tied them off triumphantly, admiring his handiwork.

Whatever had happened to this person, they would survive.

_I'm Lil' Nazbol. And I just saved a life._


	2. Meet N' Greet

"Gooooood _morning_!" grinned Lil' Nazbol, watching the person he'd rescued wake up as he bounced on the bed. After they had passed out in the alleyway, he had picked up their body and carried them to his house. His old hoodie had fit the person perfectly, as this person was extremely small for an adult. Their arms were wrapped in proper bandages now, the bleeding stopped completely.

"Ugh… where am I?" they muttered.

"You are in my house!" he returned happily. "My name's Lil' Nazbol, but you can call me Naz."

"Where's my LSD?" moaned the figure, seemingly not registering what Naz had said. They stretched before flopping over, facing the opposite direction from him.

Naz frowned. "Ellis Dee? Is she your girlfriend? Boyfriend?" He gasped. "Was Ellis the one who hurt you last night?"

The person laughed bitterly. "Maybe you're right. What was your name again?"

"Lil' Nazbol." He paused. Should he explain who he was, what he stood for? This person could very well treat him as horribly as the Centrists had. Or worse. He shuddered, clutching his coat closer to himself. He just decided to ask the person again, "Who are you?" Maybe they'd have a more comprehensive answer, now that they were not suffering from blood loss.

"I, well…" Their face grew into one of gloom. "I don't really know anymore."

"That's okay!" smiled Naz. He didn't know what was wrong with this person, but he would try his best to fix them. "Anyways, are you a boy or a girl?" he asked, quoting Professor Oak from one of his favourite childhood games. "I can't call you 'they' forever."

They froze, eyes narrowing, slowly turning towards Naz. "_What_ did you just say?"

"I said, 'are you a boy or a girl?' There _are_ two genders, after all," Naz repeated. He didn't know why it was such a big deal for this person to answer.

They slowly rose up from the bed, wincing as their bandaged arms scraped the blanket, slowly lurching towards Naz. "Kid, are you some kind of fash?"

"I…" Defeated, Naz nodded. He'd have to explain and then he'd get laughed at. "Part fash, part com-"

He was interrupted as he was tackled to the floor with a flying jump from the person he'd rescued. Despite being light enough that Naz had picked them up last night, his attacker was strong enough to pin Naz against the ground.

"I will give you five seconds to explain yourself, disgusting fascist!" screeched the now surprisingly mobile person. As Naz stared into their eyes, paralyzed with fear, he noticed that they'd swapped colours from an earlier cold gray to bright green.

"I- I'm a Nazbol! National Bolshevik!" screamed Naz in terror. "Culturally right! Economically left! Please don't hurt me!"

The fist stopped inches away from his face. Naz quivered in fear.

"Please…" he whimpered.

They sat back, brushing themselves off. "I'll give you a pass. You're just a kid, and you did save me."

"W-what do you think of my…" Naz sat up and looked down at himself self-consciously. "My ideology. Do you, d'you think it's, like, a contradiction?"

"Dude, every ideology is a contradiction except mine." They smirked.

"What are you, anyways?" muttered Naz.

"You helped me realize, Nazbol. Uh, Naz, was it?" They stretched, shaking themselves off. "The fash must be bashed. Unless they're kids. But yeah. No matter how much I try to deny it, I'll always be Ancom."

"Ancom, huh." _The third Extremist_. And this person had said they'd known Commie and Nazi. Gears turned in Naz's mind, for what end goal he knew not.

"And one last thing, before I go back to sleep." They yawned. "It's unnatural, waking up before three in the afternoon."

"Yeah?" Naz made a mental note. _Do not wake up Ancom, or I will get beaten up. _

"It's que/quem."


	3. Good Afternoon!

The sweet scent of frying eggs replaced the usual funk that surrounded the oft-unused kitchen as Naz cracked them into the pan. A couple pieces of the shell fell in, but he didn't care. He was going to make breakfast for his guest. Was that the right term? Ancom wasn't his friend. Yet. Naz really really really wanted to make friends.

"Hello!" he greeted Ancom joyously as the older person walked into the room.

"Mornin," grunted the anarchist as que took a seat at the counter across from Naz. He didn't really understand how to use these "que/quem" pronouns, nor why they were so necessary. But he supposed it was just like she or he, right? If Naz couldn't tell whether Ancom was a boy or a girl, then maybe there was a good reason that he should use the pronouns.

As Naz flipped the eggs around with a dented spatula, he began to plan out his day. It was nearly four, so he'd have five more hours till he fell asleep. In that time, he could try to befriend Ancom.

He didn't really know how to do that.

Naz was bad at making friends.

He remembered when he first heard about the Centricide. While part of him ached to see death, violence, blood spilled on the ground he stood upon and on his hands and everywhere he could see, another part of him shut that down, pushed it deep below the surface in a little locked box that he only took out when all other options were exhausted.

He'd met with the Centrists to see whether they'd accept him. And, well.

Naz dropped the spatula as he remembered what had only happened last night. Half-cooked eggs sprayed into the air.

They hadn't.

No, he didn't want to remember it, but he wasn't strong enough to resist.

He'd been cornered. Dead Centrist was the one who had been closest to him, amongst the congregation of taller, older men who were jeering at him for even thinking he could be part of their team.

In a blind rage, he'd torn out the man's throat with his bare hands.

He sank down to the floor of the kitchen, curling himself into the fetal position, tears seeping from his eyes. He was only twelve, god dang it, why couldn't he live a normal life like the kids he watched through the window? Kicking soccer balls through tiny nets in their front yards, throwing basketballs through hoops in their driveways, while it was all Naz could do to fend for himself and not starve to death.

He'd tried to befriend them. But it was so, so hard, and all they did was laugh at his name. Eventually, he'd stopped.

"Hey, hey dude. Are you alright?"

The high-pitched voice of Ancom busted through the wall separating Naz from reality. Bringing him to his senses, like a gentle mouse squeaking in his ear.

"You fell over. I thought you tripped, but then you didn't get up," continued the anarchist in a slightly caring tone of voice. "You okay?"

Naz shook his head wildly to clear the bad thoughts out of there. "Yeah, I'm… I'm good."

"Alright. Those eggs look, uh, well, you might wanna check on them," Ancom added.

He could hear the tension in Ancom's voice as he picked himself up and stared at the pan. Its describable contents were shell fragments, bits of blackened charcoal, and a rubbery mess that jiggled as Naz poked with the spatula. Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, a strained giggle escaped Ancom. Naz joined in, laughing at just how absurd this concoction looked.

"Yeah, maybe I should cook next time," the anarchist said apologetically, out of breath and nearly in tears. "I mean, I only know how to do pot brownies, but like, eggs can't be too hard?"

"Pot brownies?" Naz gasped. "Like, you cook them in a pot? That sounds so good!"

"Oh, dude!" exclaimed Ancom, pulling Naz into a hug and tousling his hair. Naz shook his head in indignation, but eventually succumbed to the brotherly interaction. "You've got to be the sweetest person I've ever met, Naz."


	4. Late Night

Naz couldn't go to sleep; he'd been staring at the ceiling for at least fifteen minutes (though it felt like an hour). Last night he'd been so tired that the events had all just kinda faded away and let him be. But now, he was tossing and turning. Eventually, he grabbed his blanket and bounced all 4'11" of his pajama'd self into the living room. He was an energy box, a power plant, and there was no way he was going to sleep right now.

Ancom was sitting on the couch, staring at quis? quer? hands. Naz would have to ask about that. He would try with these pronouns, he really would, he decided. The anarchist was so engrossed in thought that que didn't even notice Naz until he jumped onto the couch right next to quem.

"Hellooooooo!" he grinned, tossing his blanket over himself as he flopped onto the tattered sofa.

"Oh! Hi there, Naz," replied the startled anarchist. "I thought you were going to sleep?"

"Can't sleep," Naz explained. "Wanna, uh, play a game? Watch a movie?"

Ancom shrugged. "Sure, what game do you have in mind?"

"Minecraft! I always wanted to play with a friend," he chirped. "I've been trying to get a win at Hypixel UHC, but," he stared down dejectedly, "I never have."

[A/N: this takes place in an alternate timeline where Hypixel has servers for consoles]

"UHC, huh," replied Ancom thoughtfully. "Those can be pretty fun. What's your setup?"

Naz took out two game controllers, used so much that the logos had worn off, and plugged them into the TV. "We can split-screen, right? Do you know how to split the screen? I don't."

Ancom jumped up from the couch with the baseball bat that que kept on hand at all times. "Allow me!" que grinned.

"Wait, no, wait!" squeaked Naz. "Not like that! I mean, like, make two screens! Instead of one!"

"Oh, share screen!"

"Yeah!"

Five minutes later, they were in the game's lobby.

"My heart is going crazy," muttered Ancom. "Haven't played a UHC in ages."

"Shaking and quaking," added Naz wisely.

The game started. They had ten minutes to get ready before PVP enabled, but Naz knew a way to kill others before that was even ready.

"Ancom, d'you have a spare water bucket? And some lava?"

"What, you building a portal or something?"

"No," Naz smiled slowly. He'd seen another player who had already had full diamond armour, eight minutes in. He knew that if the grace period ran up, that guy and his team-mate would absolutely tear through him and Ancom. So he'd take matters into his own hands.

He snuck up behind the player in the tunnel that he was mining through, and in the blink of an eye, trapped his head in lava and placed water to solidify it into obsidian.

It took the guy plenty of time to die, as Naz tapped his fingers impatiently on his controller, waiting for the chest of loot to appear underneath a lightning strike. Ancom looked at Naz's screen, mouth forming into a silent O as que saw the carnage and Naz's brutal smile.

"I love this game!" Naz gushed. His angry grin fading away into one of bliss, he asked the anarchist for some apples to craft healing. He wasn't winning, and he probably wouldn't, but that was okay. He was happy.

They agreed to split up. Ancom began building a trap near the middle of the map, where people would be forced to migrate to as the zone grew closer. Naz opted to lure people towards a hole he'd built, where he'd then trap them in obsidian and beat them to death as they suffocated.

By the time the zone was around a quarter of its original size, Naz had quite a lot of spoils of war. He'd racked up seven kills, which was more than he usually got. And he began to feel hopeful.

"Oh, come on!" whined the anarchist.

"What's wrong?"

"Someone sabotaged my trap with cobble!"

Naz looked over and gasped. Not at the conglomerate of snow, sand, and rocks that was strewn across Ancom's screen. No, but the fact that-

"You're only _half diamond_?" Naz shrieked. "How many people did you even trap with that?!"

"...one," que admitted dejectedly, head hanging.

Naz shook his head in frustration. "Look, you have enough to make CORN!" Corn stood for Cornucopia, a grandiose dose of craftable healing that would be very useful in the end-game deathmatch that was happening in around ten minutes.

"Corn?" Ancom looked blankly at Naz, head tilted. "There's no corn in Minecraft."

Naz felt like he was about to scream. Had Ancom never played Hypixel UHC? Now that he thought about it, the possibility took hold in his mind.

"Oh, don't worry. I watch Fruitberries, you know him? UHC youtuber?" was the response to his voiced complaint.

"YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED HYPIXEL UHC? YOU'RE TELLING ME THIS _NOW?!_"

"I think I'm doing quite well at it, actually," responded Ancom haughtily.

Well, there _were_ about fifteen players left. But still.

They met up at surface and Naz gave some armour to the anarchist, who accepted this "mutual aid", as que called it, quite gratefully. He showed quem how to craft golden heads and corn, as well as fusion armour and some good weaponry.

"I think we're stacked!" he shouted joyfully. They shared quite some healing between the two of them, as well as a fire aspect sword that Naz had won after a scary battle. Ancom had shown worth at running away from enemies, which Naz said could be useful for baiting others into a trap in the deathmatch.

At last, they were teleported to the final arena. Eight other players, some with teammates remaining, some without, awaited them. Naz had no idea their abilities, but had seen quite a scary battle involving a Flame bow. He gulped, adrenaline rushing his veins.

The countdown began.

_10._

He slowed his breathing, closing his eyes as he placed his controller on his lap and rubbed his hands together, clearing them of sweat.

_5._

His heartbeat doubled as the numbers flashed on screen.

_3\. 2. 1._

He ran, jumping along the way, to the midpoint, Ancom milliseconds behind him. Each of them grabbed a chest and opened it, stealing the items and running.

"Enemies spotted, 3 o'clock!" Ancom shouted.

"It's not _that_ late, is it?"

"JUST LOOK OUT!" screeched the anarchist, bolting away and leaving Naz alone with two other players. From the looks of the situation, they were a team. They slashed at Naz in sync, enchanted swords blazing. He tried to run, but was eventually backed up against the wall. His healing nearly exhausted already, he tagged them with fishing rods to find out their healths.

112% and 94%.

He was so, so dead.

And as he pressed attack repeatedly, jumping up to get the crits though it barely mattered any more, suddenly one of them was shot backwards off of him. Caught on fire.

Then another one.

Each gave Naz a brief moment of respite as they doused themselves, which he took gratefully to heal. He didn't turn to face his unknown saviour, as he knew he could be shot too at any moment.

"Turns out, bows are pretty fun!" announced Ancom, shooting Naz's two aggressors again.

"How'd you get that Flame thing?" Naz gasped, shocked.

"Oh, it was just lying in a chest when I ran by."

He shook his head in amazement. Ancom had the audacity to loot someone else's kill? What a legend.

Together, the two of them defeated the members of the team. Naz grabbed the Knockback sword and ran to mid, fusing it with his own Fire Aspect and Sharpness to create something beautiful. A perfect killing machine.

This was going to be great.

Together, he and Ancom surveyed the arena. Two people were duelling it out at one corner, and another person rushed in to third-party them.

"Let's get this bread," Ancom grinned with gleaming eyes.

They shot and slashed, stabbed and gashed, a perfect synergy of Ancom's bow and Naz's sword, until it was two versus one.

"I'm out of heals," cried Ancom.

"Me too," groaned Naz. Things were looking grim.

"What's that in his hand?" A brown cube, rather than a weapon, rested in the hand of their opponent as he fled, Naz and Ancom both giving chase.

_It can't be._

Oh, but it was.

"A Chest of Fate!" Naz exclaimed. "No way!"

Consuming the potion that lay in the chest after placed would make this opponent almost impossible to beat.

"Ancom," Naz muttered. "You stole loot before, right?"

"Yeah, wh-ohhhh. I get it. I get it. Yeah. I gotcha."

Ancom couldn't shoot, or their enemy would get further away from them. The two jump-sprinted in perfect unison, each knowing where the other would place a block and knowing where to avoid, where to go.

"He's slowing down! I think he's out of g-heads!"

The enemy placed down the chest.

"GET IN THERE, ANCOM!"

The chest's lid opened, two avatars staring in its abyssal opening.

One of them looked up and started drinking.

"I GOT IT!" screeched Ancom. "I [:)] STOLE HIS POTION!"

Naz rushed in and slashed the enemy with his sword, who caught on fire. Ancom began rapid-firing shots from a bow.

"We did it!" Naz dropped his controller as fireworks exploded all over their screens. "WE DID IT!"

They hugged it out on the couch, not caring about the screen's light in front of them. "I can't believe we won," murmured Naz, adrenaline already leaving his body as he collapsed into Ancom's arms.

"I'm gonna have to lecture you about not using 'he' to describe someone whose gender is unknown," muttered Ancom.

"Oh, c'mon, did you see his skin?"

"Shush" was the anarchist's only reply. But que still held Naz comfortingly, and let the small kid bury his head in Ancom's chest as he drifted off to sleep.


	5. A Close Encounter

A knock on the door startled Naz. He'd been making a late lunch for himself, leftovers of which would be breakfast for Ancom, whose sleep schedule (late o'clock until 3pm) still baffled him. He turned down the heat on the pan and tiptoed to the door, peeking through the curtain.

Staring back at him was a man in a fedora and a golden suit with purple embellishments, wearing sunglasses that blocked his eyes completely. His eyebrows raised above the rim of the shades as Naz tilted his head, deciding whether to open the door to him.

"Excuse me, I'm from the government," the man said smoothly, muffled by the door but still audible.

"Woah, okay! Sorry!" Naz fumbled with the latch. He respected the state, and well, any authority, greatly. "What do you want, sir?"

"I'm looking for a man named Post-Left. He was last seen around this neighborhood."

_Post-Left._ Those words rang a bell somewhere in Naz's mind, but he couldn't place where he'd heard this name before.

"Have you seen someone about your height, messy brown hair, grey eyes," the man paused, checking a notebook, "wearing a black hoodie and carrying a baseball bat?"

Ancom nearly fit that description, but quis eyes were green now, and the only colour of quis single, slightly tattered hoodie that que'd stolen from a dumpster recently was pine green, with a college logo on the front. Ancom always joked that it'd motivate que to go to college, but que hadn't done anything about it.

"He loves pot, weed, DMT, and LSD."

Ellis Dee? He remembered Ancom telling him about that. The facts seemed to point in one direction, towards quem.

On the other hand, Ancom wasn't a he.

"Sorry, I haven't seen anyone like that."

"...I see." The man stopped completely, and a tear leaked out from under his glasses. "Well," he continued, voice shaky, "let me know if you do." He pulled a business card from his suit pocket, handing it to Naz. "Tell him Ancap misses him."

Before Naz could respond, the man turned abruptly and made a signal. A roaring noise began to fill Naz's ears, and a helicopter descended from the sky. A ladder dropped down, which Ancap grabbed onto. He'd obviously done this many times before. In moments, he was in the chopper, and it disappeared into the sky. It was gone before Naz could blink.

"What was that all about? And what's that in your hand?" Naz jumped. A bleary Ancom had walked up behind him without him noticing. "Also, you burnt the eggs again."

"Oh, um," Naz stammered. "This guy, Ancap, right? He's looking for someone named Post-Left, and he gave me a card with his number on it to call if I find him, and then he left."

Without warning, Ancom grabbed the card and ran inside. Naz followed confusedly, finding quem next to the landline, dialling the number with shaky hands. Que stared at it, trembling, but didn't press the dial button.

"Are you okay?"

Que dropped the phone, obviously forgetting that Naz was there.

"I…"

Ancom burst into tears, grabbing Naz and holding him tight. "I can't do it, I can't, I can't go back," que cried.

Naz hesitantly wrapped his arms around the anarchist. "It'll be okay," he mumbled through quis hoodie. "Want me to call him? What should I say?"

"No, it'll be fine," Ancom sobbed.

"It doesn't look fine," Naz frowned, guiding the anarchist to a couch.

"I have to call him. It has to be me… but I can't. I can't do it."

"Maybe not today," Naz started.

"Huh?" Que looked at him, eyes glistening and red. But deep in them, hope sparked.

"But you can just call him tomorrow, right?"


	6. Gardening and Chats

Naz wanted to get Ancom's mind off of Ancap, whom que still hadn't worked up the courage to call. So he decided to start a project, one that both of them would like.

Ancom always talked about weeds and plants, so Naz decided on an indoor garden. It was a constant winter in his home of the far north- nothing except potatoes and tundra grasses survived outside. To Naz, it was the best place ever. He loved snow. But Ancom always whined about the cold, as que was from the southwest. The south was a land of "beautiful plants and stuff", to quote quem.

"How do you not freeze?" que always whined. "I swear, I'm going to get frostbite."

Speaking of Ancom, there que was, laying face-down on the couch and waving quis legs around in the air. Naz shut the door behind himself, carrying a bag of seeds in one hand and a box of potting soil in the other.

"Hey, I'm home!"

No response.

"Ancom," Naz tried, placing the box down. "I have something fun we can do together!"

"You can start it," the anarchist grunted. "I'm busy."

"Busy doing what?"

No response again.

"You alright?"

Naz walked over, less spring in his step than usual, to Ancom. Que was pressing a pillow to quis face, hugging it tightly.

"Hey, I'm worried 'bout you."

He sat down near Ancom's knees, forcing the anarchist to curl up and finally sit up. Que was still looking away from Naz, but he guessed that was okay. Maybe que was just going through a rough time right now. Maybe Naz just needed to give him space.

"So," he started. "I remembered you liked plants…"

Que shrugged and leaned back. For the first time today, Naz saw Ancom's face, and it was horrible. It looked like there were smoke stains all over quis face, and qui smelled of skunk. Quis eyes were pink, though que didn't look like que had been crying. That was odd. In fact, the whole combination really confused Naz. Maybe it was better not to ask.

"Anyways." He coughed; the smoky stench coming from Ancom really didn't cater to his senses. "I remembered you liked plants, so I bought us a gardening kit!" All thoughts forgotten, Naz bounced around till he located a good dish for the plants. Ancom sat up from the couch with a grunt, following him into the kitchen where he grabbed a broken pan, the size one would make a large lasagna in, from a drawer.

"Always thought this would come in handy," Naz chirped to himself.

Whatever was going on in Ancom's head seemed to have cleared itself up. Que helped Naz put the soil into the dish, then poke holes in the dirt for seeds. Ancom preferred randomly spaced holes, while Naz opted for orderly lines. Eventually the two clashed, but they sorted out the difference after a while.

"I like nature because it's random," murmured Ancom as que spilled half a packet of chives everywhere but in a single one of the holes.

"Hm?" asked Naz. Ancom had seemed weird today, in a constant state of disconnect, bumping into things rather than being alert, and leaving cryptic answers to simple questions.

"You can't really tell it what to do. Plants just go… wherever, I guess." Que waved an arm in the air, bumping a cup of water over. "Oops." Naz scurried for a sponge.

"Actually, I like it because it follows rules," Naz replied thoughtfully as he mopped up the mess. "Order in the madness. Somewhere, entropy is doomed to repeat itself. If chaos is everywhere, then chaos is order."

"Woah, where'd you get that from?"

Naz shrugged. "Comic I read."

They continued planting the seeds, conversing about nature. Eventually, they finished, and Ancom wandered back over to the couch. Naz followed suit.

"How did you even get this house, anyways?" Ancom asked.

"Oh, well…" Naz trailed off. "It's kinduva long story, y'know?"

"I've got time."

As Ancom made quemself comfortable, Naz bounced over to the kettle and heated up some water. After a few minutes, he poured it into two mugs with cocoa powder. He stirred them up, added ten marshmallows to each cup (Naz could never have too many), and carefully walked over to Ancom.

"So basically," Naz started, "my parents, well, didn't like each other too much."

"Aww," frowned Ancom, hugging Naz.

"When I was super young, they got, like, joint custody. I spent the school year in the northwest, and the summer in the northeast. It was nine months to three months, and I guess that's why I turned out more of a leftist. My dad- well, one of them- was a leftist."

"You had two dads?"

"Yeah," muttered Naz in shame. "I hated every second of it."

"And is that why you hate gay people now?"

Naz shrugged. "Probably."

"You do know that they aren't all like that? And most of them don't hate each other. They love each other."

"I guess…"

"Anyways, sorry for interrupting."

"So about a month ago, both of them just left. They bought me this house here, gave me a card for buying what I needed, and then, well, I dunno where they went."

"And you're only, what, 12?"

"Yeah." Naz snuggled into Ancom, who enveloped him with quis hoodie. Que was warm and reminded him of love, something that he hadn't experienced for so long. "I never even knew their names…"

"What were they like?"

Naz yawned and took a sip of his cocoa. "They were both cold, but that was all they had in common. So I want to be different. I want to be warm."

"That's really, really nice of you, Naz," Ancom responded, ruffling his hair. "Most people internalize their broken childhoods and turn them into hate. But all I've seen from you is love."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah."

"Good, because I never want to be like them." Naz shuddered, spilling a bit of cocoa on himself. It burnt, and he yelped a bit, but settled back against Ancom. "The leftist one was big, like a bear. He tried to love me, but he thought I was too much like my other dad. But the rightie wasn't any better. He kept on telling me I was a dirty commie, and he was glad he only had me for three months." A tear leaked from his eye. He didn't like to remember this stuff, but he felt glad that Ancom was here for him. Que felt comforting, like a cousin or older sibling.

"Where did they go? Did they tell you anything?"

"Yeah. They said they had a project. I think it was called…" Naz scratched his head. "The Center-side?"


End file.
